Wednesday, July 30, 2014

UNO Materials Scientist Gets Grant to Help Develop New Solar Device at National Lab

Weilie Zhou, Ph.D.

A University of New Orleans materials scientist has received a $10,000 grant from
the Louisiana Board of Regents to help develop a new solar device at the National
Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo.

Weilie Zhou, associate professor with UNO's Advanced Materials Research Institute,
and Sarah Wozny, a UNO doctoral student in chemistry, are spending a month this summer
at the laboratory collaborating with Kai Zhu, a senior scientist with the National
Renewable Energy Laboratory.

The researchers will work on fabricating and characterizing a new hybrid solar cell
that uses environmentally-friendly inorganic semiconductor nanomaterials. Nanomaterials
are chemical substances or materials that are manufactured and used at a very small
scale. Nanoscale materials often have unique optical, electronic or mechanical properties.

The researchers will use the state-of-the-art equipment at the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory to understand how the charge transport mechanism works to maximize
efficiency. The goal of the project is to make stable, low-cost high-efficiency solar
devices.

The grant comes from the Louisiana Board of Regents Links with Industry and National
Labs (LINK) program, which facilitates science and engineering research, education
and training opportunities for faculty, postdoctoral researchers, undergraduate and
graduate students. The objective of the program is to help develop a diverse, internationally
competitive and engaged workforce of scientists and engineers by establishing partnerships
between Louisiana researchers and collaborators at national laboratories, research
centers or industrial facilities.